


FFVII Folk Tales: The Raven and the Bat

by ixieko



Series: FFVII Folk Tales [6]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Creation Myth, Folklore, Gen, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-03
Updated: 2016-01-03
Packaged: 2018-05-11 09:50:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5623072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ixieko/pseuds/ixieko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A tale about the first humans on Gaia and gods who helped (or not helped) them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	FFVII Folk Tales: The Raven and the Bat

Long, long ago, when the land was still young, the very first people lived in fear and knew little of the world. Seeing how they struggled, Oli (Raven - M.), the oldest son of the Sun, came to them and began to teach them the lore of the land: how to talk to animals, and how to build houses, and how to cultivate the land so it was fertile and gave big harvests, and how to use sky gems. Working long and hard, he built for them the beautiful island of Dugani, where the days were always warm and where were no illnesses and hunger. People were not many in count, but on that island they lived many times longer than we do now.

Oli's brother Kuchida (Bat - M.), who was younger only by a moment, grew bored, because his brother paid more attention to humans than to him.  
"Stop going there, to these humans," He said to Oli. "Let's go together to the star fields instead. We didn't spend time together for a long while, brother."  
But Oli said, "Come to Dugani with me, brother, help me teach humans."  
"Do you love them more than us?" Kuchida asked. "Do you not want to spend time with me anymore?"  
"I love you, brother, but they need me," Oli answered. "Their race is still young and there are a lot of things they don't know."

Seeing that arguing would lead him nowhere, Kuchida went with his brother and helped him to teach people, but in his heart he nursed a grievance. He walked among people and saw that they were peaceful, but, being a son of the Sun, he looked deep in their hearts and noticed the seeds of darkness hidden there. "If I could show their true nature to my brother, he would stop loving them," Kuchida thought.

Soon, Oli went to their neighbour, Agdy (Thunder - M.), to seek the hand of his daughter, Hai (Rain - M.). "Look after the humans while I'm absent, brother," Oli asked Kuchida, and Kuchida answered, "Oh, don't you worry, brother, I will look after them well."  
At night, when Kuchida's father and siblings fell asleep, and Moon did not yet wake, Kuchida quietly left his house and went to the mountains on the eastern side of Dugani island, and caught twenty-two vipers and plucked twenty-two hemlock plants, and mixed their poisons together. Then, turned invisible, he went to the village, and poured the poison into village's grain stocks.

After that he headed to westernmost part of the island, where large swamp lay, and took clay from that swamp, and made a human-shaped figurine out of it. He took one of his father's gems and put it into golem's chest to give it life, cut off last knuckle of his left little finger and put it into golem's stomach to give it soul, then poured it with green blood of the land, and the golem awoke.  
"You are Hargi (Troublemaker - M.), my servant," Kuchida said, and taught the golem what to tell humans, and then returned to the sky village and went to sleep, as if nothing happened.

In the morning, humans woke up and prepared their meal, and ate it, and became ill from the poison. Their stomachs hurt, and they cried, "Oh, wise Oli, help us, cure us from this sickness!" But he did not come.  
And they called again, "Oh, wise Oli, save us! We are dying and we don't know what to do!" But he was too far away to hear their pleas.  
When they called for the third time and still didn't receive an answer, and despaired, a stranger came in their village and said, "Do not call for Oli, people. He never treated you like anything more than just his toys, and now he grew bored and left you. But don't be afraid: I am here to help."  
"Can you heal us?" The people asked, and he told them that they needed to eat animal's meat to be healed.  
Before that, people never ate meat; they grew crops, and hunted for fish, but with animals and birds they were friends, and took only eggs and milk, if they were permitted to. While everyone were hesitating, chieftain's son took his spear and went to the place where a herd of roe deer was grazing, and killed one of them. The other roe deer were scared and ran away, and told other animals what the man has done, but others didn't believe, because humans were always kind to them.  
Hargi taught people how to cook meat, and while they were cooking, he secretly added an antidote into the food. When the meat was ready, and villagers ate it, they felt better in an instant, and thanked him for saving them.

And so, while Oli was away, Hargi, directed by Kuchida, walked among humans, turning them against nature and against each other. He went to village smith, and told him, "Why are you doing you work for free? The other should give you something in return." He went to village chieftain's son and told him, "Why is your father still a chieftain? You saved your people by killing the deer, you are more worthy!" He went to two fishermen who loved the same girl and told each of them separately, "Why do you let the girl decide, if you can beat the other and have her for yourself?"

Slowly people became hostile to each other, they quarrelled and fought, and Hargi made sure that they were never satisfied with the result and never made friends again. To make their fights even more violent, he taught them how to make guns and explosives.  
Animals became afraid of humans, because people hunted for them now, and some of them began to kill humans where they met them. The land was uncared for, and crops and fruit trees began to wither, because people now more cared for their quarrels than for their land.  
Kuchida, looking at them from his sky house, was pleased by his handiwork and thought, "When my brother sees that, he will abandon humans and never look at them again."

Soon or late, Oli came home, and immediately went to visit his beloved humans. But instead of the green land and peaceful village he saw burnt forests, and trampled down fields, and poisoned rivers, and fortresses that were firing bombs at each other. Horrified, he tried to talk to people, but they shouted, "Go away, Oli! We don't listen to you anymore!"  
Oli went back to the sky village and asked Kuchida, "What happened while I was away? Why are humans so hostile?"  
"I don't know, brother," Kuchida said, "They don't let me come near them."  
Then, Oli looked at his brother's hand and noticed his injury.  
"What happened to your finger, brother?" he asked.  
"Oh, I accidentally cut it off when I was cutting wooden figurines," Kuchida lied.

With sadness Oli looked at his island and thought of a way to help humans to become peaceful again. He understood that the island had little time left; soon it would crumble under the force of war.

Once, looking at the island from his window, he noticed a strange man among the humans, and looked closer, and saw the light of a Sky Gem in his chest. He followed man's movements through one of the fortresses, and out of it, and to another, and when he went out of the second fortress, Oli flew down and caught him.  
"Who are you?" He asked, and Hargi (it was, of course, him) answered, because Kuchida never ordered him to keep silent, "I'm Hargi, the servant of Kuchida."  
"What are you doing here?" Oli asked, and Hargi said, "I grow the seeds of darkness in humans' souls."  
"Why are you doing that!?" Oli shouted.  
Hargi answered, "I'm doing what Kuchida created me for."  
"No," Oli said, "It cannot be. My brother would never do that."  
But the Sky Gem in Hargi's chest was a proof that one of Sun's children was responsible for the creation of this golem. And when Oli put the creature to sleep and opened his chest and stomach, he found a piece of his brother's finger. He left the golem in small, concealed cave, and flew back to the sky to talk to his brother.

But, seeing that Oli wasn't going to abandon humans, that he was angry at his brother and not at wretched mortals, Kuchida met him with weapons drawn. For days they battled, and world lay frightened below them, and humans stopped their war and hid in their houses, trembling in fear. At last, Sun stopped them and said, "Why are you making so much noise, sons?"

"Kuchida messed up the work I was doing. I built the beautiful island for humans, and asked him to look after them while I'm away, and instead he almost destroyed everything," Oli said.  
But Kuchida replied, "All I did was help humans to come to terms with their own nature. It's not my fault they are rotten at their core."  
"You're lying!" Oli shouted, and lunged at his brother again.  
"Enough!" Sun yelled, so loud that skies trembled and the land shook, and then he turned to Kuchida and said, "For your treachery, you will be bound deep under ground for as long as this world exists, and when it will be about to die, you will help your brother to move humans, and animals, and birds, and all things alive to another place."  
He clapped his hands, and in the same moment the highest mountain of the land cracked and its halves parted, Kuchida fell from the sky into the deep chasm, and the mountain closed over him. As a guard for his prison, to prevent him from escaping too soon, Sun chose the eyeless hag, Nonon (Beginning - M.), who didn't need eyes to see because she was born before the light existed.

"As for you," Sun said to his oldest son, "I see that you are too patronizing to humans. You will bring humans back to the Churindari, and will not go to them anymore; go to your fiancee instead."  
And so, Oli went to the island of Dugani for the last time, but before that he went and found a huge ice floe, and asked the water spirit, the great azure dragon Aen, to carry it to the island. People, scared by the battle in the skies, first were afraid of him, but when he told them that the island was about to sink, they agreed to go with him. They gathered on the ice, and Aen brought them all way to Churindari.

Oli then left humans and went back to the sky, and never again returned to the ground, but even now he is one of the spirits that are easiest to reach; when shamans pray for rain, they ask him to put in a word with his wife, and he always helps. That's why raven is the sacred bird here in the North.  
The island of Dugani is long sunk, and the Sky Gem that was embedded in Hargi's chest has sunk with it. They say that it still holds a part of Kuchida's dark soul, and if you ask him, he will come forth and bring all kinds of curses upon your enemies.

_(From “The tales of North”, Evan Marius, 1932)_

* * *

"You are reading the story of Kuchida's imprisonment for the third time, Grim. What's the matter?"  
"Eh, really? Well, I've been thinking about one of the Cetra tablets found alongside with a rare Summon Materia in an underwater cave, and this... This seems to be related to it."  
"Ah, so you finally found something of interest for yourself in these tales."  
"I never told you I wasn't interested."  
"I admit, after you fell asleep while reading, I began to doubt..."  
"Gast, it was one time, and the story was far too boring."  
"Hm."  
"What about Cetra? Did you find any here?"  
"Of course. Look at these first people: they seemed to live in peace with nature and each other. It fits the description of Cetra society. Or, probably, Oli was a Cetra who tried to teach humans."  
"And who, in your opinion, is Kuchida?"  
"It's hard to say, but, see, an evil person who possesses great powers is a recurring character in these tales. It can be a historical figure, or, probably, a personification of humans' dark side."  
"Only this one didn't live in the Northern mountains."  
"He didn't, but what about the place of his imprisonment? The highest mountain in the world, that was parted and then closed again... Could it point at the Northern Crater?"  
"There are at least two more locations, Gast. The Crystal Mountain in the middle of the Western Continent and the Round Island. I'd say, all three deserve investigating."  
"Hm. Maybe, maybe."


End file.
